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THE BLACK PANTHER 



THE BLACK PANTHER 

A BOOK OF POEMS 



BY 

JOHN HALL WHEELOCK 

»• I* 

AUTHOR OP 

?HE HDMAM FANTASY*' "tHE BELOVKO ADVKNTUrtE" 

"love ano libebation" "dust and light," etc. 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1922 






Copyright, 1922, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Printed in the United States of America 



SEP26'?2 

©CI.A6S199'6 



The author thanks the editors of the following, for kind 
permission to reprint here various poems first published in 
their pages: AlVs Well, The American Magazine, The Art 
World, The Bellman, The Bookman, The Century Magazine, 
Contemporary Verse, The Dial, The Forum, The Freeman, 
Harper's Monthly, The International, The Literary Review of 
The New York Evening Post, The Lyric, McClure's Magazine, 
The Outlook, Poetry, The Poetry Journal, The Poetry Review, 
Reedy' s Mirror, Scribner's Magazine, The Smart Set, The Yale 
Review, Youth. Thanks are also due to Messrs. Harcourt, 
Brace andCompany for permission to reprint "Sea-Horizons," 
first published in the anthology, Enchanted Years. 



CONTENTS 

PAQB 

The Black Panther S 
I. Dim Wisdoms 

NIGHT HAS ITS FEAR 7 

THE SO'RROWFUL MASQUERADE 12 

OCTOBER MOONLIGHT lo 

THE FLESH AND THE DREAM 15 

VAUDEVILLE 16 

1914 18 

THE BELOVED 10 

PROUD DOOM 21 

THE SECRET ONE 22 

THE UNDISSUADABLE AUSTERITY 25 

BLIND PLAYERS 26 

TRAVAIL 28 

THE POET TELLS OF HIS LOVE 29 

THE BURIED DREAM SI 

HAUNTED EARTH 32 

vii 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

LONG AGO 34 

TCHAIKOVSKY: FIFTH SYMPHONY 35 

MIRROR 30 

PLAINT 38 

ANDANTE 39 

THE DEAR MYSTERY 42 

IN THE DARK CITY 43 

II. Space and Solitude 

IMMENSITY 47 

SEA-HORIZONS 4^ 

OF DAY CAME NIGHT 51 

PILGRIM 53 

BY THE GRAY SEA 54 

THE FISH-HAWK 55 

DISDAINFUL BEAUTY 57 

MY LONELY ONE 58 

///. The Lost Traveller's Dream 

WILD THOUGHT 63 

journey's END 64 

BELATED LOVE Q5 

viii 



CONTENTS 



'ACE 



A LEAVE-TAKING 66 

BUT LOVE — 72 

ANNE '73 

THE SILENCE '''4 

EXULTATION '^5 

SONG OF SONGS 77 

SORROWFUL FREEDOM 78 

STARLESS MORNING 79 

PHANTOM 80 

LEGEND 81 

IV. The Divine Fantasy 85 

The Lion-House 97 



IX 



THE BLACK PANTHER 



THERE is a panther caged within my breast; 
But what his name, there is no breast shall know 
Save mine, nor what it is that drives him so. 
Backward and forward, in relentless quest — 
That silent rage, baffled but unsuppressed, 
The soft pad of those stealthy feet that go 
Over my body's prison to and fro, 
Trying the walls forever without rest. 

All day I feed him with my hving heart; 

But when the night puts forth her dreams and stars. 

The inexorable Frenzy reawakes: 
His wrath is hurled upon the trembling bars. 
The eternal passion stretches me apart, 

And I He silent — but my body shakes. 



DIM WISDOMS 



NIGHT HAS ITS FEAR 

NIGHT has its fear: 
As the slow dusk advances, and the day 
Fades out in fire along the starry way, 
The ancient doubt draws near. 

Vague shapes of dread — 
Soft owl, or moth, and timid, twittering things — 
Move through the growing dark; on furtive wings 

The bat flits overhead. 

And in the house 
The death-watch ticks, the dust of time is stirred 
With timorous footfalls, in the night is heard 

The gnawing of the mouse. 

Through the old room 
What phantoms throng, what shapes that to and fro 
Tremble, and lips that laughed here long ago — 

Gone back into the gloom I 

7 



NIGHT HAS ITS FEAR 

A whip-poor-will 
Bleakly across the baleful country cries 
From a blurred mouth; and from the west replies 

Echo — and all is still. 

Now from her shell. 
Her body's prison, with the ancient doubt 
And terror stricken, the scared soul looks out. 

Asking if all be well. 

Great kings have been, 
Poets, and mighty prophets — shapes have cried 
About the world, or moved in mournful pride; 

And are no longer seen. 

From many lands 
Their plaint was lifted; from how many a shore 
Sorrows have wailed, that are not any more ! 

They sleep with folded hands. 

They have their day: 
Their cry is loud about the earth, who come 
To the one end; the singing lips grow dumb 

Always in the one way. 
8 



NIGHT HAS ITS FEAR 

Though they implore, 
Brief is the plea, inflexible the fate ! 
Silence has the last word; and then — the great 

Silence, forevermore. 

Pondering these. 
The fretful spirit in bewilderment 
Quickens with a vague doubt, and, not content. 

Broods — and is ill at ease. 

Her being is 
Throned on so frail a pulse; such fleeting breath 
Bears up her dream across the gulf of death 

And the obscure abyss. 

Always she hears 
The hurtling chariots of the hurrying blood. 
Her shuttling breath that in the solitude 

Weaves the one self she wears. 

Now first the vast 
Veil over heaven is rent, and bares the whole 
Shining Reality; whereat the soul 

Sickens, and is aghast ! 



NIGHT HAS ITS FEAR 

Darkness reveals 
The tragic truth; her will sinks hopeless wings 
Before the inexorable Fact of things. 

Humbling the dread she feels. 

With the old Awes 
Confronted and the flaming Mystery, 
She may not speak; but pondering, suddenly 

Grows silent, and withdraws. 

She may not bear 
That sight: the spangled heavens, from east to west, 
Stretch out too wide the confines of the breast. 

Straining in wonder there. 

Upon what Brow 
Of awful eminence — O thought that stuns ! — 
Is laid that chaplet of a miUion suns. 

Upon what Forehead now? 

Who was it wrought 
This universal glory all around. 
Of ghttering worlds forever without bound ? — 

Great Poet, what a Thought ! 
10 



NIGHT HAS ITS FEAR 

It is a Word 
Unutterable that is written there; 
The spirit, gazing, is one voiceless prayer. 

Careless if it be heard. 

Her thoughts ascend, 
Star beyond star, height beyond aching height 
Upward, in adoration infinite. 

Forever, without end. 

So shall it be ! 
Till heaven yield her sceptre; till the throne 
Of night be shaken, and the Face be known 

Beyond eternity: 

Till God divide 
And rend asunder the embroidered hem 
Of darkness; till the starry diadem 

And crown be set aside ! 



11 



THE SORROWFUL MASQUERADE 

EVEN as to a music, stately and sad, 
The young girl's feet begin to move in a dance. 
And curiously, for joy, shift and advance; 
So to a mournful waltz, sombre and sweet, 
All laughing things move with delighted feet— 
So all things that draw light and laughing breath 
Move to the mournful waltz of life and death: 
Comedy is a girl dancing in time 
To the tragic pipes, sorrowful and subhme; 
And ever she laughs back, and as she skips 
Mimics the mournful music with her lips; 
Then, for sheer anger at her own pretense. 
Sobs violently at her own vehemence; 
And mocks her tears. But when the pipings sleep, 
She needs must cover up her face and weep. 



12 



OCTOBER MOONLIGHT 

HEAVEN is like an empty room to-night; 
From rim to chilly rim 
Wells the clear radiance of the cold moonhght. 
And the earth-ways are dim. 

Who has departed from this perfect place ! 

What fiery one here set 
His throne in splendor, whom, vanished now, the face 

Of heaven remembers yet ! 

Emptiness— emptiness— the skies are bare, 

And the stark earth no less 
Grows vacant as a memory: everywhere 

Sleeps the cold loveliness. 

Old is the earth, too old; her voice is shrill 

Against the end of things — 
To the inevitable her bitter will 

Grows humbler as she sings. 
13 



OCTOBER MOONLIGHT 

Now from my breast the very soul takes flight. 

Leaving her chambers bare 
Of all save lonely memory and moonlight — 

And Song is silent there. 



14 



THE FLESH AND THE DREAM 

THE baffled dreamer, the defeated Christ 
That for your love upon the cross-tree hung — 
O take Him to your bosom, give Him rest 
Close at the wanton wonder of your breast, 
O carnal World, forever well and young ! 



15 



VAUDEVILLE 

WHEN to a cheap and tawdry tune the orchestra cried 
out. 
Frantic, in violent syncopation, and began 
Your holy, adorable body in mournful grace to move about 
Through the old, devious motions, the device of man — 

How suddenly then, silent magnificence, you put to shame 
The crowded and garish theatre, the strangled cries 

Of flute and trumpet ! O mortal body, bearer of our flame 
Through the drear lands of death, flower of the eterni- 
ties ! 

Revered, reviled, wept and adored, beseeched, cried out 
upon 
By ravening lips of the ages — the sacred source of things, 
That glimmered in Thrace, that shone in Rome, that swayed 
in Babylon, 
Here moves to the vile throb of castanets and strings. 

16 



VAUDEVILLE 

O through what generations have you lured, what secret 
ways, 
Man's fainting heart to be reborn ! What splendors move 
Deep in his breast when, dolorous, your reluctant beauty 
sways 
In the old weary rhythms of eternal love ! 



17 



1914 

I LIFT my gaze beyond the night, and see, 
Above the banners of Man's hate unfurled. 
The holy figure that on Calvary 

Stretched arms out wide enough for all the world. 



18 



THE BELOVED 

LIFE, Beloved, I lay my heart against Your heart, 
■^ Long, long I peer into the dark pool of Your eyes; 
Never will I forsake You, O adorable One ! 

I cannot comprehend You, but I love You. 

In the shadow of Your locks I hide my eyes from the terrors; 

But You are not greatly concerned — 

Closer and closer I draw toward the dear Face. 

See — I set my lips against Your lips. 

But You do not answer: 

Steadfast and grave beyond me Your eyes are burning. 

As of one that dreams. 

I am clinging here at Your heart ! 

I am singing my love of You for sheer joy ! 

Mother, what is it that trembles on Your lashes so soft — 

And Your lips are salt as the taste of the sea? 

Can it be for me Your eyes are brimming. Mother, 
Even as they smile? 

19 



THE BELOVED 

Can they be for me, these drops on Your hps so warm ? 
Dear One, do I understand at last ! 

O holy draught, wine of the world, bewildering and bitter- 
sweet ! 
Sacred tears, from the depths of what wild love welling ! 
Deeper and deeper let me drink and draw — 
Nirvana, divine oblivion. . . . 

Bitter is the taste of Your lips, Beloved ! 

Though I lie in the darkness, yet often do I remember You — 

and wonder — 
And the touch of Your lips, how strange, and how sad. 



20 



PROUD DOOM 

THE crucifixion of Beauty on the cross 
Of mortal destiny — the eternal law — 
The thorny crown of death about her brows 
Fills me with anger — then with sudden awe: 

So dear, so lovely her adorable sorrow 

Shows in the darkness, 'mid the tragic doom, 

The very heart in me leaps up with laughter, 

And hastens, proud and secret, toward the tomb. 



21 



THE SECRET ONE 

HERE, by this frame and network of the flesh 
And wires of her control 
Surrounded, central in her subtle mesh 
And secret, sits the soul, 

Urgent through all the body, while each part 

Obeys, and all are one — 
While in her dungeons labors the lone heart 

To make her will be done. 

She reins the forces in their wild career 

That bear her, as they go, 
Over the dark abyss; and knows how sheer 

Reaches the gulf below. 

How dubious her life and slenderly 

Hangs, by a scarlet thread. 
Between eternity and eternity — 

She guesses, wise in dread; 
22 



THE SECRET ONE 

And ever watchful, ever wary, set 

In the centre all alone, 
Feels 'round her cautiously if any threat 

Be made against the throne. 

Sometimes along her nerves the voice of pain 

Bears tidings to her hate 
And frantic wrath, that the old foe again 

Is clamorous at the gate — 

She rages up and down, and to and fro 

In timid anger runs: 
If the frontiers be menaced, it is known 

All over, and at once. 

She hears her breast of sorrows night and day 

At labor; 'round her brood 
The old oblivions, where she sits at bay; 

She hears the battling blood. 

Echoes assail her from far worlds that lie 

Beyond the bourne of these — 
Contact and color and the angry cry 

Of the realities 

23 



THE SECRET ONE 

Beat on the brain forever; the high dream, 

By stratagem of speech. 
Enters her portals, where she sits supreme 

And silent, pondering each: 

Weighing and challenging, for weal or woe, 

All rumors, sending out 
The emissaries of her will, that go 

To the frontiers about. 

But most she loves the hour that beauty brings. 

Of rapture and release 
From the crude hunger and the cry of things, 

The hour of her peace — 

When, by the inner light that floods her cell. 

The spirit, even as here. 
Travails, in secrecy and joy, to tell 

Her passion and her fear. 

Now to the listening soul in you who read 

These lines, she tells it all — 
How dear her day, how dark shall be, indeed. 

The hour when night must fall. 



24 



THE UNDISSUADABLE 
AUSTERITY 

LESS than it is we would the Truth should seem: 
' Holy and marvellous the Actual is — 
But stern her lips, and bitter is her kiss 
Upon the brows of dream. 



25 



BLIND PLAYERS 

jT^AY breaks, and the old drama 
^^ Repeats itself anew: 
The hind wakes to be hunted, 
The huntsman to pursue — 

The lover and the beloved. 

Each one doomed to his part; 
The victor and the vanquished, 

The hushed and the hurrying heart- 
In terror and in triumph 

They play it through again, 
The old, unchanging drama 

Of passion and of pain. 

As the great Will has willed it, 
That, in all forms being cast. 

Wars on Itself forever. 

O may they at the last — 

The falcon, and the fledgling 
He stoops to from the sky; 
26 



BLIND PLAYERS 

The lips that are so eager, 

The lips that would deny- 
When the old war is ended. 

When the stern Will is done. 
Meet in eternal pity 

And know themselves as one ! 



<m 



TRAVAIL 

[BEFORE the sacred beauty of the morn* 
-^-^ How fade the wranghng wisdoms of the earth ! 
Wisdom is beauty in the womb, unborn; 
Wisdom is beauty laboring for birth. 

Wisdom, the ghost of Beauty, in the wide 
Womb of the world lies clamoring for life, 

While the white Beauty, the immortal Bride, 
Sits throned upon the summits void of strife. 

So the bright flower, bending from the soil, 
Sums up and scorns the wisdom of the sage; 

And Helen's beauty, soaring beyond toil, 
The laboring beauty of the poet's page. 

So, when the veils of mystery are furled, 

Earth's wisdom blooms in heaven's beauty above . . 
Beauty is all the wisdom of the world 

Uttered by the seraphic lips of love! 



28 



THE POET TELLS OF 
HIS LOVE 

TJOW shall I sing of Her that is 
^ •■• My life's long rapture and despair- 
Sorrow eternal — Loveliness, 

To whom each heart-beat is a prayer ! 

Utterly, endlessly, alone 

Possessing me, yet unpossessed — 
The dark, the drear beloved One 

That takes the tribute of this breast: 

Daemon disconsolate, in vain, 

In vain petitioned and implored — 

How many a midnight of disdain 
Darkly and dreadfully adored ! 

Beauty, the virgin, evermore 

Out of these arms with laughter fled — 
Vanished — a voice by slope and shore 

Haunting the world — Illusion dread — 



THE POET TELLS OF HIS LOVE 

Most secret Siren, on whose coast, 

'Mid spray of perishing song, are hurled 

All desolate lovers, all the lost 

Souls, and half -poets of the world: 

Through sleepless nights and lonely days 
In tears and terror served and sought — 

Light beyond light — the supreme Face 

That blinds the adoring eyes of thought ! 

How shall I sing of Her ? Nay all, 
All song, all sorrow, all silence of 

This desperate heart that is Her thrall. 
Trembles and tries to tell my love ! 



30 



THE BURIED DREAM 

I HID a dream amid the sands of Time, 
And said, "Now will I go upon my way — 
I shall be free henceforward from this time. 
And full of laughter all the livelong day.*' 

But it came following like the midnight voice 
Of my true love behind her lattice-bars — 

And it came following like the silver voice 

Of my lost childhood strayed beyond the stars: 

Like my dead self, so laughable, so sad. 
So foolish and so lovable it rang — 

That, for sheer laughter, I was very sad, 

And took it back into my heart, and sang. 



31 



HAUNTED EARTH 

HEAVEN at last 
Is bared, and the whole world one radiant room- 
Black are the shadows, in great pools of gloom 
By copse and thicket cast. 

The cattle browse 
With sound of gentle breathing, and their breath 
Is mild in glimmering meadows, or beneath 

Drooped branches, where they drowse; 

While 'mongst the chill 
Shadows, and cold, clear moonlight all about, 
A single bat goes dipping in and out 

Softly; and all is still. 

Silence around — 
Save for a cricket ! Lapped in slumb'rous peace 
Lie hill and meadowland, the shining seas 

Lap on them without sound. 

It is earth's cry 
Lifted in adoration; the old dream, 

32 



HAUNTED EARTH 

Beauty, is with her, and her hour supreme 
That goes so swiftly by. 

Too well she knows 
The sweet Illusion, from no earthly shore 
Visitant, the bright word that evermore 

Troubles her dark repose. 

Her heart lies bare — 
Drunken, drunken, she lifts a dreamy breast; 
Hour by hour, in rapture and unrest 

Flows the unending prayer. 

The path of night 
Reaches, from rim to rim, a radiant road 
Whereon the exalted Beauty walks abroad 

In wonder and wild light. 

Upon what eyes, 
Lifted in homesickness, now falls again 
The loveliness that haunts the world with pain- 
Light out of Paradise ! 



33 



LONG AGO 

AH, once your quiet eyes were calm and deep 
And wistful with much dreaming; long ago 
Your solemn lips, so innocent of woe 
And delicately parted, seemed to keep 

A secret still unsaid, and murmured low: 
But that was long ago. 

And I, who saw and loved you from afar. 

Prayed a hushed prayer, the first I ever prayed. 
That God might keep you safe; and unafraid 

I looked up through the night at my one star. 
Moving mysteriously and bright-arrayed. 
And silently I prayed. 

While you passed singing tenderly and low. 

Wandering through life's meadows with slow tread, 
Death laid his kiss on your beloved head: 

But that was long ago. 



34 



TCHAIKOVSKY: FIFTH 
SYMPHONY 

MY heart cried out in wonder: Can it be. 
The form, from which this thriUing passion flows 
On tides of beauty and eternal tone 
Audibly now before the very sense 
Of thronging thousands, somewhere in the clay 
Of Russia lies, with folded hands — relapsed 
Into the Formless? 

And my mind replied: 
The longing that so labors for release 
Not wholly in that transient form was trapped 
Wherein we perish miserably here — 
But has escaped into the form supreme, 
A deathless body; and now walks abroad 
Among the generations of mankind. 
Trailing the robes of the immortal woe. 

And still that music poured. O sacred heart 
And secret, well-head of those streams of song — 
Are you content ! How is it with you now, 
O breast whose sorrows overflowed the world ! 

35 



MIRROR 

ON the wide sea of sleep 
I launch my gliding boat: 
Over the rhythmic Deep 
On flowing tides I float. 

The curving shore around 

Fades in the pale starlight — 

A slumbering, sleepy sound 

Goes drifting through the night. 

It is the music of dreams 
Along the horizon blown. 

It stirs the glimmering streams 
Where the pale stars lie strown. 

The stars shine in the Deep, 

Reflected from afar; 
My eyes tremble with sleep. 

Reflecting sea and star. 

My eyes look up at me 

Out of the mirrored eyes, 
86 



MIRROR 

And in their depths I see 

Mirrored the stars and skies. 

Around — around — around 

My boat whirls with the stream; 
I feel a dizzy sound 

Around me, like a dream. 

Where may I moor my bark ? 

How may I lift my head ? 
What is that silence? Hark — 

The sound of dreams is fled ! 

The breath of slumber lies, 
Like perfume, on the Deep: 

Night with a thousand eyes 
Stares at herself in sleep. 



37 



PLAINT 

BRIEF is Man's travail here, and transitory 
His wTath that soon is spent — 
Brief his lament, 

Lifted in vain against the harsh decrees 
Of the high Destinies 
That move not for the murmur of his woe: 
Even as snow 
On sunny meadows, as a lover's story 
Told in an April twilight long ago, 
Brief is he even as these — 
His little hour of tumult or of glory — 

And to what end devised we may not guess. 
Considering, as we go 
Toward the same shadows, bearing the same spark. 

His vanity and utter nothingness. 
Yet in the mighty Dark 

Dear is the spirit; grievously we know 

Earth has one burden more, one soul the less. 



38 



ANDANTE 

T^HE evening steals like an ocean around your playing, 
^ Whose perfect tones move on the sombre Deep 

With a grave gesture, and sigh into a sleep, 
George, where your hands, along the piano straying. 

An intricate rhythm keep. 

And all the room is starry with your dreaming. 
And limitless and vague. O the white square 
Of the window-pane shimmers behind you there, 

Framing the street, where the first hghts are gleaming. 
Transfigured now and fair ! 

Now, while the heaven of night grows vast above her, 
The soul from her lone dream has sure release; 
The tumult and the ancient struggles cease — 

The wars that Beauty wages on her lover 
Dwindle into a peace, 

W hen Schumann speaks so firmly and so sadly. 
And all the twihght rustles, wave on wave. 
O, at that smile his wondering spirit gave, 

39 



ANDANTE 

What new smile in all things shines back so gladly. 
Grown dignified and grave ! 

The curtains by the window rise and flutter, 
The ornaments on the mantel, row on row, 
Seem touched with a melancholy of long ago — 

What is it the music dreams, but cannot utter ? 
Schumann — we know, we know. 

Ah George, what shall be said to you who feel it — 
All the half-hope and passion unexpressed 
When twilight heaves more gently in the breast ! 

Ah George, but you, when words would fain reveal it, 
Smile — and divine the rest. 

O wrap me in Beethoven's storm and thunder ! 
My baffled spirit, with abated breath. 
Flutters upon the verge of life and death — 

And all my being, whirled along in wonder, 
Dies between breath and breath. 

Let me endure, within a single pulsing 

Of the quick heart, in a storm of showering rain 
Of sound, all joy, all grief — each breath again 

40 



ANDANTE 

Live through a Hfe complete, in one convulsing 
Moment of rapturous pain ! 

Silence — the lamplight, through the window streaming, 
Falls on the listless keyboard, smooth and white — 
Remembered music dreams in the dull light; 

And you, too, George, sit silently and dreaming. 
Alone, into the night. 



41 



THE DEAR MYSTERY 

JOY, and the triumph and the doom of gladness 
Make in my breast a music sweet as sadness; 
Shall I not sing for sorrow, and again 
Cry out, for the sheer joyousness of pain ! 
For all life's moods go murmuring like strings 
In a low chord, and all things sound all things. 
Through alternations of the grave and glad: 
Yet, in the end, all things are grave and sad. 
I feel all things, but cannot comprehend; 
And run, laughing and weeping, to the end 
Of the dear mystery, the fated race — 
And the deep darkness covers up my face. 



4^ 



IN THE DARK CITY 

THERE is a harper plays 
Through the long watches of the lonely night 
When, like a cemetery. 

Sleeps the dark city, with her millions, laid each in his 
tomb. 



I feel it in my dream, but when I wake — 
Suddenly, like some secret thing not to be overheard, 
It ceases — 
And the gray night grows dumb 

Only in memory 
Linger those veiled adagios, fading, fading . . . 
Till, with the morning, they are lost. 

What door was opened then ? 

What worlds, undreamed of, lie around us in our sleep, 
That yet we may not know ? 
Where is it one sat playing 

Over and over, with such high and dreadful peace, 
The passion and sorrow of the eternal doom? 

43 



II 



SPACE AND SOLITUDE 



IMMENSITY 

AT noon I watched 
^ In the large hollow of eternal heaven 
A soaring hawk climb slowly toward the sun 
Through gyres of adoration without end. 
His flight was a great prayer .... 



47 



SEA-HORIZONS 

THE sorrowful expanse from heaven to heaven, 
From zone to zone, from deep to height above. 
The mute arch of the everlasting heaven 
Bends over me with Your unwearied love. 

Immeasurable, unutterable, and soundless — 

Wide as the east from the west Your love is wide; 

The unfathomable distances are boundless 
Infinite tenderness on every side. 

Against the dark strength of Your huge endurance 
My little being beats her baffled wings, 

Lifts her shrill voice, and wounds the calm assurance 
And tenderness of Your large evenings. 

In the vast robes of Your serene compassion 

She hides her soiled and burning face of shame — 

Your solemn and inexorable passion 

Lifts her blurred eyes to meet Your glance of flame. 

As bread that for my daily fare is broken. 
The eternal loveliness before me spread — 

48 



SEA-HORIZONS 

Unutterable gesture — word unspoken. 
In the proud silences forever said ! 

The sun puts forth his strength, the reaches shimmer 
With inarticulate rapture, and the proud 

Waters are thrilled; the fields of ocean glimmer 
With shifting light and overshadowing cloud. 

Noon upon noon in heaven takes up his station, 
Day follows night, and night succeeds to day: 

Your infinite and lonely meditation 

Sinks with the sunset down the starry way. 

Veiled is the Vast: the heaven of evening burning. 
Reveals on the large waters of the sea 

Hopelessness — hopelessness — the patient yearning 
And dumb caress of the Immensity. 

What message have You left for me, what token 

Of Your lone love, whose laboring Will has wrought 

The firmament over my head, and spoken 

Unto my nothingness Your starry Thought ! 

Sorrowful is the mighty Heart that reaches 

Around this brief and scornful heart of mine — 

49 



SEA-HORIZONS 

The dim curve of the melancholy beaches, 
And vacancies along the lone sea-line. 

In the huge longing of the far sea-spaces, 

The tremulous rim about the waters curled, 

Waits the eternal Gentleness, and traces 
His sad horizons 'round the fading world. 

Cloud beyond cloud, the arch of heaven goes over- 
Steep beyond steep, the patient skies descend: 

The illimitable wastes and waves discover 
Loneliness — loneliness — without an end. 

Inexorable Compassion, may I never 

Reach the last verge and limits of Your love ! 
Beyond me, still beyond me melt forever 

The eternal margins, fading as I move. 



50 



OF DAY CAME NIGHT 

WE lay by the sea, and knew 
Darkness must make us one: 
Heaven was thrilled clean through 

By the trumpets of the sun, 
The sea burned gold and blue. 

The sand in the pale heat 

Was parched as desert sand — 

Your wrist where the veins meet, 
The cool veins of your hand, 

Made thirst seem bitter-sweet. 

Never a word was said 

Of what must be so soon; 

In longing and in dread 
The golden afternoon 

Burned down, till dusk was shed. 

It was not hope, nor fear. 

Yet something of them both. 
That held us trembling here, 
51 



OF DAY CAME NIGHT 

Half eager and half loath 
For darkness, dread but dear. 

Few were the words were spoken. 
But in each other's eyes 

We read the certain token 
That sealed our destinies — 

Our wings of pride were broken. 

So, while the waters paled 
Around us, and the west 

Fainted, our hearts that failed. 
In silence were confessed. 

Silence at last prevailed. 

And now up her clear stair 
The evening-star began 

To climb, where heaven was bare 
A homing fish-hawk ran 

Down avenues of air. 

Night swallowed up the sun, 
And darkness, like a hood, 

Sank — and the sea breathed on; 
In silence and solitude 

The eternal will was done. 
52 



PILGRIM 

THE cold wind cries across the rolling dunes. 
The gray sails fleck the margins of the world: 
I watch the rolling dunes along the barren sky, 

And wan, white waters by the swift wind hurled. 

O where are Queen Faustina, and Babylon, and Tyre, 
And pale Troy, lost in a silver mist of tears — 

And I, O earth, your child, more old than all these others. 
What have you done to me these many thousand years ! 



5S 



mamm^mmmmmm 



BY THE GRAY SEA 

WHERE the gray sea lay sad and vast 
You turned your head away. 
And we sat silently at last — 
There was no word to say: 

By the thundery 

By the iron thunder of the sea. 

We could not speak, for the lost hope 

Of the glad days before; 
We sat beside the long sea-slope, 

Watching the endless shore — 

By the thunder. 

By the iron thunder of the sea. 

So that, as in the old despair, 
I reached you pleading hands; 

But you sat pale and helpless there. 
Beside the barren sands: 

By the thunder. 

By the iron thunder of the sea I 
54 



THE FISH-HAWK 

ON the large highway of the awful air that flows 
Unbounded between sea and heaven, while twilight 
screened 
The sorrowful distances, he moved and had repose; 

On the huge wind of the Immensity he leaned 
His steady body in long lapse of flight— and rose 

Gradual, through broad gyres of ever-climbing rest, 
Up the clear stair of the eternal sky, and stood 

Throned on the summit ! Slowly, with his widening breast, 
Widened around him the enormous Solitude, 

From the gray rim of ocean to the glowing west. 

Headlands and capes forlorn of the far coast, the land 

Rolling her barrens toward the south, he, from his throne 

Upon the gigantic wind, beheld: he hung— he fanned 
The abyss for mighty joy, to feel beneath him strown 

Pale pastures of the sea, with heaven on either hand— 

The world with all her winds and waters, earth and air. 
Fields, folds, and moving clouds. The awful and adored 

55 



THE FISH-HAWK 

Arches and endless aisles of vacancy, the fair 

Void of sheer heights and hollows hailed him as her lord 
And lover in the highest, to whom all heaven lay bare ! 

Till from that tower of ecstasy, that baffled height. 

Stooping, he sank; and slowly on the world's wide way 

Walked, with great wing on wing, the merciless, proud Might, 
Hunting the huddled and lone reaches for his prey 

Down the dim shore — and faded in the crumbling light. 

Slowly the dusk covered the land. Like a great hymn 
The sound of moving winds and waters was; the sea 

Whispered a benediction, and the west grew dim 

Where evening lifted her clear candles quietly . . . 

Heaven, crowded with stars, trembled from rim to rim. 



56 



DISDAINFUL BEAUTY 

ON the wide waste the web of twiHght, trembling 
Hangs low with stars and night; 
The dying day in the worn west, dissembling, 
Crowns his defeat with light. 

Here by the grave, gray sea my soul sinks crying. 

By beauty stabbed to death — 
"O, in the dusk of the world, let me, too, dying. 

Mix with all these my breath !" 

There is no answer. In the cold heavens shining, 

Star trembles unto star: 
The virgin moon in the clear west declining 

Hangs, like a scimitar. 



57 



MY LONELY ONE 

EVEN as a hawk's in the large heaven's hollow 
Are the great ways and gracious of your love: 
No lesser flight or wearier wing may follow 

In those broad gyres where you rest and move. 

Most merciless, most high, most proud, most lonely — 
In the clear space between the sky and sea 

Wheel her huge orbits, where the sea-winds only 
Wander the sun-roads of Immensity. 

Yet have I known your heart and of what fashion 
Your love, how great, how hardly to be borne — 

Your tenderness, too perfect for compassion. 

Your divine strength, too pure and proud for scorn. 

You are most beautiful, but it is given 
But few to find you, fewer still to keep 

Your high path through the solitude of heaven. 
My lonely one, your watch upon the Deep. 

Now toward the gold glow of the sunset's splendor 
Veer your great vans. What haven in the west 
58 



MY LONELY ONE 

Now draws you — while the mellowing light makes tender 
Your dripping plumes — what islands of the blest ? 

Lift me, O lift me up to you forever, 

Beautiful Terror ! Let your sacred might 

Stoop to me here, and save — O let me never 
Sink from you now, to share a lesser flight ! 

Even as I pray, my wings of longing fail me, 
And my heart flags. In solitude you move 

Down the night's shore: not praying shall avail me, 
To lift me, fallen from your faultless love. 



59 



Ill 



THE LOST TRAVELLER'S DREAM 



WILD THOUGHT 



S 



URF of song upon my heart 
Breaks forever, where thou art; 



The dark ocean in my breast, 
Of wild love, may never rest: 

Still one thought upon her shore 
Breaks in dream forevermore ! 



63 



JOURNEY'S END 

FORGIVE me, dear, if I have lost my way, 
In coming home to you 

Through storm and shadow of the gathering night; 
If I did stray. 

Still I was seeking, and I never knew 

How near me burned the dear and friendly light. 

Now at your door, ere the great Dark begin. 
Alone I stand, and knock: 

Say not it is too late that I have come — 
O take me in. 

For I am yours ! Darling, unlock, unlock — 
All Time to this was but a journey home ! 



64 



BELATED LOVE 

COME home to me, are you come home to me, 
O heart of mine — but in what dolorous guise ! 
And the great hour, O 'twas otherwise 
Love had imagined it in days to be ! 
These pleading hands — these lips — How dreadfully. 
At what strange lips and in what alien eyes 
Have you sought mine ? Beneath what darkening skies 
Come home to me at last, come home to me? 

I would not know the reason: here upon 

This breast of sorrows loose your aching breast; 
Tell me again and yet again, and say 
Still the eternal word, still babble on 

Your voiceless tale of some unhappy quest — 

How in the night and storm you lost your way. 



65 



A LEAVE-TAKING 

WELL I remember it, that night in May, 
That last, sweet night in the Old World long ago, 
The last ere my departure — the dark room 
That brooded 'round us, and the drowsy breath, 
Out of the courtyard, of the linden-trees, 
Pungent and sad. Only your hand I felt, 
Reached to me in the darkness; and the beat 
All through its fingers of the unconscious blood, 
Your life at battle, in the silence told 
Immortally to mine its plaintive tale 
And doom eternal — only your hand I felt. 
Reached to me in the darkness — yet it seemed 
In your hand's touch I touched your very self, 
Your very presence, changeable, careless, wild — 
But O how poignant — sharp with all delight, 
And gracious with dear bounties to bestow. 
How greatly granted ! Drowsily then at last. 
In the old way, you begged me for some legend 
Out of my boyhood's record, some romance 
From the far world that bore me; and my voice. 
In the sweet, alien tongue, your mother-tongue, 

66 



A L^EAVE-TAKING 

Moved through the darkness with a peace unfeigned- 
For a grave peace was on us, and the fear 
That thrilled the midnight, fell away. The street 
Slumbered, save where, departing, like a ghost's. 
Faint footfalls down the farthest distance sighed; 
And dwindled out forever. ... So you slept. 

Well I remember it, that night in May — 
The sleep, the hushed awakenings, full of dread. 
From haunted meres of horror and disdain. 
From dreams of terror — and the mad return 
Into the bounteous pity of two arms. 
The comfort and the kindness. O the return 
Forever and forever, wild and sad, 
Seraphic with all weariness and pain, 
Insatiate with all love — as if to slake 
In one abandon all the desperate drought 
Of the years to come ! Upon my own I felt 
The wet, salt quivering of your lips, and all 
Your being fold me in, urgent to save, 
Urgent to hide the approaching loneliness. 
Our bitter portion; prismed in tears, the dusk 
Swam 'round with dizzy color: the nightingales, 
Beauty's disdain above the war of things. 
Beauty's high pity from her virgin heights, 

67 



A LEAVE-TAKING 

Our meeting hearts pierced with a single pang — 
Like a bright sword of sorrow through the breast 
Driven, and Uke a bruising sword withdrawn. 

The sun arose — 
Fled were the nightingales, the love, the joy — 
And with him rose at last the relentless fear, 
Like a harsh face never to be pushed back. 
Between your face and mine; till all the terror, 
The loneliness, the irrevocable fate. 
In the dim twilight hugged me, and a cry. 
Up from my self to your self, would have rent 
My hesitant lips, in the great need, to you 
Turned for the last compassion. . . . But you slept. 
At peace you lay. Over you in the dawn 
I leaned, and knew you truly what you were. 

Then a great love 
Triumphing over sorrow, like the light 
Clearing the west when sunset's wrath has waned 
Before the risen stars — a mystery — welled 
Up through me radiant, helpless where you lay 
In the calm pose of sleep: and above Time, 
Our little passion, and the circumstance 
Of temporal tumult, self to self we met; 

68 



A LEAVE-TAKING 

And sundered reverent. . . . Faintest breath of flowers 

Stirred in the twihght fragrantly, and there 

The pathos of our days together filled me 

With a new wonder— flooding on me came 

A host of memories, as to one long dead, 

Lifted beyond his living; till all seemed 

Marvellous and immortal and benign. 

And now 
The hour was come. Beside your quiet breast 
I begged forgiveness for my many sins 
Done to you, though unwitting— all the hurt- 
In a swift prayer, and even for this last — 
To wake you to your sorrow. And your lips 
Forgave me — ^yes, in the silence. So I touched 
Your lids with kisses. And you woke, and wept. 

But brave to the end with a heart-breaking bravery- 
Gallant and gracious, dear with sacred eyes, 
You let me go. With a half-kiss we parted. 

II 

Along the city-ways 
Already day's vehement tumult had begun: 
Through street and justled alley, court and square. 
The tireless and eternal Heart poured forth 

69 



A LEAVE-TAKING 

Its myriad human faces, grave or glad. 

On the old course of toil (a choral hymn 

From the lips of Life) each face a testimony 

Of some prefiguring love. O the delight, 

The incredible bounty and sustaining will 

Of passionate longing, peopling all the earth — 

And the joy of man and woman ! The laughing boys ! 

The milkman clanking along in his cart, and there 

Two bonneted old women, and there a thief. 

Perhaps, with a night's booty sneaking home ! 

Yet solemn all and sacred, with new eyes 

I saw them then, and in each face I seemed 

With a new soul to read the soul beneath; 

Through love and pain and sorrow having passed 

Into the breast of all humanity — 

Through love and sorrow. Yes, and for your sake, 

Being human, all things human touched to love 

This heart of mine, made holy; and the thought 

Of the million other hearts beyond the dawn — 

The gladness, and the sadness, and the pain — 

Came back upon me like a lifting music. 

Beautiful, and most sorrowful, and divine. 

Till a vast compassion 
Up through the springs of all my being welled 

70 



A LEAVE-TAKING 

Intolerably! Ah, even as to myself, 
Unfaithful, the exuberant Bounty stooped 
With arms of pity; so I longed to do- 
To lose myself at last in the Great Self 
That beams upon the just and the unjust, 
Carelessly shedding radiant hght around: 
Compassing finite hate with infinite love. 
With beauty, ugliness, and death with life! 

So through that street of pouring souls I passed, 

Torn between grief and ecstasy. But none 

Guessed the immortal secret that I bore 

Close at the fluttering heart— the fear— the joy— 

The very beat and memory in my blood. 

The exquisite sense and lingering pain of you. 



71 



BUT LOVE — 

FLOWING in the sunlight here, 
The river shines Hke a glass, 
Even as it did last year; 
On the hillside the grass 
Bows, as the breezes pass — 

But my love is gone, my love is gone. 

Where is she — where, and how? 
Has she forgotten me yet? 

Ah, she has forgotten me now ! 
She is too lovely for regret: 
W^ould that I ever could forget. 

My love is gone, my love is gone ! 

It is so still — so still . . . 

The sound of a rumbling train 
Rushes into the hill. 

Autumn comes again 

With the old wonder and pain — 

But love comes never again 



72 



B 



ANNE 

ELOVED— O adorable and false— 
Whom have you taken now in the dear toils ? 



By what pale margins do your footsteps stray. 

Or what enchanted wood ? What valleys hold 

The lily of your loveliness ? What hills 

Have known your weight upon them, what far shores ? 

Twilight comes tenderly, while evening lifts 
Along the pallid rim her lonely star — 

O happy heart on which your heart is laid ! 



73 



THE SILENCE 

IN the evening, in the quiet Park, we walked together 
^ After so many and after so many years — 
We walked again in the evening, in the warm May weather, 
After the partings and tears. 

And under the splendor, under the starry skies. 

We walked, without sound or sigh, in a calm unbroken; 

As the dead walk together in a long-lost Paradise — 
Silent, with no word spoken. 



74 



EXULTATION 

BEFORE the dawn the very thought of you, 
That wakes me, as the morning wakes the night, 
Floods all my heart with most exultant joy. 

The thought of you that rises with the stars, 

When evening wheels all glittering through the dark, 

Floods all my heart with most exultant joy. 

O life and joy and breath and death of me. 
With every breath I draw you in like air ! 
O I shall die of you, of you, of you ! 

Though now you banish me forevermore. 
Never to look upon your face again— 
Think you that I shaU sorrow for my love? 

Though I shall lie upon my bed of death 
And know you have forgotten me forever- 
Think you that I shall sorrow for my love? 

life and joy and breath and death of me, 

1 shall cry out exultant— and lie dead ! 
O I shall die of you, of you, of you ! 

75 



EXULTATION 

love, I love you better than you know ! 

1 love you as the water loves the sea. 

I love you as the twilight loves the dark. 

The trumpets of the morning, to my heart 
From shining towers blow the thought of you; 
The waves of evening flood my heart with you. 

O life and joy and breath and death of me, 
With every breath I draw you in like air ! 
O I shall die of you, of you, of you ! 



76 



SONG OF SONGS 

ly A Y heart is like a shady grove 
^ " ' That harbors, for a June, 
My thoughts, Hke song-birds mad with love 
Under the moon. 

On all the windy boughs they sit 

And in the blowing grass — 
But one bird silently enters it. 

And sings, alas! 

Then all the rest grow sad and still 

That made a happy noise: 
There is no sound on all the hill 

But that one voice. 

Faint with the memories in his breast — 

It is the thought of you — 
And when it ceases, all the rest 

Are silent, too. 



77 



SORROWFUL FREEDOM 

LONG days I begged of my heart to be 
-' Released from a love that haunted me— 
The memory of a last embrace, 
A tyrannous and a lovely face. 

"Free me," I said, "from an old love. 
The memory and the might thereof — 
Free to follow and take my fill 
Of beauty and laughter where I will." 

Never a word my heart replied: 
But on a day the old love died; 
Vanished, never to come again, 
All the passion and all the pain. 

Come — we are free to take our fill 
Of beauty and laughter where we will — 
O heart, are we free forevermore 
From the old sorrow we loved before ! 



78 



STARLESS MORNING 

nnOWARD starless morning, when deep night had bowed 

-■• On slumber's pillow my unhappy head, 

Through the dim room it drifted like a cloud — 

And swayed in silence by my lonely bed. 

What had they done to you, that dumbly so 

You covered with your hands your quiet face — 

Dear, out of kindness, that I might not know 

What horror there had wrought its dark disgrace ! 

It was those hands, too passionately, too well 

Loved, that betrayed you — O most piteous guest ! 

And to my heart, in the intolerable 

Rage of despair, that shadow I had pressed, 

Mingling in a shrill cry our grief supreme — 

My sweet — my pretty ! But, as I had drawn 

That anguish to my arms, they clasped a dream; 

And heaven glimmered with the approaching dawn. 



79 



PHANTOM 

ALONG the edge of the great, moving sea — 
That moaned forever on her barren bars, 
The old, sad love came back again to me. 
Moving quietly under the quiet stars. 

O sad love, do not smile upon me so. 

Nodding so gently with your little head — 
All the old wonder of your eyes is dead, 

And the sea-winds have chilled you long ago! 



80 



LEGEND 

WHERE are you hid from me, beloved one 
That I am seeking through the lonely world 
A wanderer, on my way home to you ? 

Dark is the night and perilous the road: 
At many a breast in longing have I leaned. 
At many a wayside worshipped; and my heart 
Is tired from long travelling. 

Perhaps 
In centuries to come you wait for me, 
And are as yet an iris by the stream 
Lifting her single blossom, or the faint 
Tremulous haze upon the hills— and we 
Have missed each other. 

O if it be so, 
Then may this song reach to the verge of doom— 
Ages unborn— to find you where you are. 
My lonely one; and like a murmuring string. 
Faint with one music, endlessly repeat 
81 



LEGEND 

To you, not even knowing I was yours, 
Her plaintive burden from the dolorous past: 
Telling of one upon a hopeless quest — 
How in the dark of Time he lost his way ! 



8^ 



IV 



THE DIVINE FANTASY 



DROTHER, from what dim world of lonely light, 
*^ Trembling on heaven's pinnacles to-night, 
Is lifted your sad face of love while you 
Stare upward toward me, staring upward, too. 
At that faint flame which is your home, between 
The leafy branches of these poplars seen — 
So hushed, so far ! Perhaps to-night you scan 
Your starry heaven for the star of Man, 
High in the trellis of eternity 
And glittering arches hung; perhaps like me 
You, too, look up and wonder. Is it fair. 
That world of yours ? Are there great cities there. 
Populous millions, hearts that beat as these. 
Clear meadows and far mountains, shoreless seas. 
Shadows of moving armies, thrones that shake? 
Does the heart thrill for love there, does it break — 
Tell me, are there hushed gardens, quiet tombs? 
And mighty poets weaving at their looms 
The old, dim wisdoms that outweary Time; 
And saints, and lifted saviours, and subHme 
Faiths and high fortitudes beyond belief? 
— All blotted out by one small poplar leaf 
In the light wind of languid summer stirred ! 

85 



THE DIVINE FANTASY 

Brother, what news out of the night, what word 

From the frontiers of mind beyond our ken, 

Of mysteries unimagined yet of men, 

Compassed by travail of your spirit ? O 

Could you but reach to us ! Could we but know 

Across the imperturbable old Dark 

Some answering glimmer of the ancient Spark 

liifted — some token, tangible to sense. 

Of the indomitable Intelligence 

That thrones on matter — language visible — 

Crying, "Eternity — and all is well! 

Brother, be of good cheer; we, too, have known! 

Not lonely moves, not utterly alone. 

Your sad fraternity through the dark of God: 

But the confederate legions are abroad, 

Life's flag advances on the starry way. 

And Consciousness, still battling, still at bay. 

Holds the bright forts against Oblivion — " 

What answering thrill would 'round the planet run ! 

For we are one; all Consciousness is one, 
Whatever form it wear, however dressed 
In gray or glamour, in whatever breast 
It lift its longing: glimmering it moves 
Through the green wave; it stamps with startled hooves 

86 



THE DIVINE FANTASY 

The upland pastures of the world, and soars 
In heaven with the eagle; on bright shores 
It basks a sunny body, or in dread 
Lifts from the undergrowth a snaky head 
And darts a flickering tongue; it is most clear 
In the lark's throat; among the grasses here. 
That couch the ant, it turns a tiny eye 
Around the darkness; scampers and is shy 
In the scared rabbit; through the murmuring air 
Wheels with the beetle, and, where heaven is bare. 
Southward with the wild crane at summer's close. 
Hungering, an eternal pilgrim goes 
On quests implacable. And from the eyes 
Of the poised panther gleam the cruelties 
Of its stern need that roams the world, and rends 
With tooth or talon; in the hawk descends 
On the stunned squirrel; in the squirrel moans 
As the hawk strikes; darkens the earth with bones 
Of its own wreck and, hungering again. 
Knows in its body the old spur. For when 
Hunger, the shadow cast by death, draws near, 
Life on her thousand thrones feels the one fear, 
And in the lion's roar at dusk is heard 
The unassuagable, insistent word 
Of urgent Being, clamorous to be. 

87 



THE DIVINE FANTASY 

Wreaking and wrought upon, eternally 

Mingling and mixed; inextricably blent, 

Victor and vanquished, in one sacrament — 

Body with body — of delight and death. 

It moves in splendor; lifts the shuddering breath 

Of the spent stag; and in the mind of Man 

Rebels against the miserable plan — 

Flings its frail web of thought across the path 

Of suns in heaven, and in holy wrath. 

On blood of murdered brothers nourished, still 

Thunders to all the world. Thou shall not kill! 

And the worm's death is in the sparrow's song. 

And I have seen it in the gnats that throng 
Old shadowy forests, in tumultuous dance; 
Or in the little measuring-worm advance, 
Inch by slow inch, along the swaying stem 
Of some exalted flower; or lift the hem 
Of the frail butterfly's embroidered cloak 
In gentle breathings that the sun did stroke 
Caressingly with fingers of his heat; 
Or from the dog yearn upward, and entreat 
With eyes of adoration or of fear 
The great god, Man — "What message, master dear. 
From the dim heights beyond me where you are?" 

88 



THE DIVINE FANTASY 

In the mare's tremulous whinnj^ in the far 
Lowing of cattle from the upland sward, 
Or wail of whip-poor-wills, at twilight poured 
On pools of silence plaintively, or cry 
Of the lone wolf beneath the glittering sky 
Of soundless winter, I have heard the same 
Splendor speak forth, and utter the one name 
Of Life, the dreadful, the magnificent. 

All afternoon the passion of heaven spent 
On earth its fiery fury in blind, bright 
Lightnings of dread and laughters of delight 
Down shuddering deeps of shaken thunder, where 
The delirious longing loosed its sorrowing hair 
Of wind and shower and overshadowing cloud 
Across the beloved face, in darkness bowed 
Or glimmering light revealed; and cried aloud 
For anger of utter ecstasy; and shed 
The wild love of the rushing rain that sped 
To the thrilled heart, consenting, of the dim 
And rapturous earth, that lifted up to him 
Drowsed lips of thirsty flowers; and the cup 
Of every flower for joy was lifted up, 
And drank, and swayed! So, wearied out at length. 
Flagged the bright pulses, and the ebbing strength, 

89 



THE DIVINE FANTASY 

With muttering of remembered thunders, passed 
Down the large shores of evening: till at last 
The exhausted heaLven of twilight from afar 
Shone washed of all her sorrows; and a star 
Brooded above the fading storm, and saw 
The winnowed reaches deepening into awe 
Of gradual darkness, and the fields that lay 
All drenched and wearied out at dusk of day 
And the worn end of things; while far away 
The receding fury moaned. 

And now they lie 
In the same peace around me, and the sky 
Holds up her stars; now in the rain-drenched wood 
The tree-toad drinks the rain and finds it good, 
And trills for joy — the sliding waters grieve 
Quietly — now the bat begins to weave 
With intricate motion on the cloudy loom. 
Of glamourous starlight mingled and gray gloom, 
His dipping flight among the darkened boughs 
And dreamy vistas; and the little mouse 
Furtively hurries through the lane, his eye 
Turned up in terror as the owl goes by: 
On softest feathers of silence overhead 
Flits the dim shadow of the ancient dread. 



THE DIVINE FANTASY 

Hooded and vague, the cruelty of his beak 
Bent on old lustful mysteries. — A squeak — 
A scuffle — beating of wings — and in the lane 
Silence — and the old wrong is done again, 
That was ere Adam; the triumphant heart 
And the defeated, each one doomed to his part. 
They play it through, the old tragedy where one 
Presence still wars and still is warred upon. 
Slays and is slain: while fiercely all around 
Shakes the eternal love-song in shrill sound. 
Of grasshopper and cricket — sleepless flow 
The immortal tides of longing to and fro 
On waves of music; endless is the prayer 
Of life to the beloved, everywhere 
Lifted in adoration: on dark shores 
Beats the insistent passion that implores 
The one dear breast of pity or disdain. 
To be reborn, to be reborn again — 
Nor perish wholly ! The blind earth is thrilled 
As with vague rites accomplished, dreams fulfilled, 
Marriage and mystic union; all along 
Her brimming meadows rings the bridal song 
And chaunt ecstatic: that great heart of hers 
Is touched now the eternal longing stirs 
From hill to hollow and hollow to clear hill 

91 



THE DIVINE FANTASY 

In many voices mingled, or the still 

Ecstasy of the firefly that trails 

Among the shadows where the starlight fails, 

His body's burning love. Forever flows 

The dreadful drama to its stately close 

And endless ending — the fierce carnival 

Of death and passion, wherein each and all 

Mix, and are mingled, slaughter, blend, and pass 

Each into other — the high poem that has 

No end and no beginning, that the one 

Self in all living forms beneath the sun. 

And on all worlds around him and above, 

Weaves on the strands of hunger, death, and love. 

I see it all, I hear it all, and lie 
Under my swaying poplars, and the sky 
Is fretted with frail leaves. The mortal dream 
Is in my heart: I hear the night-hawk's scream 
Shatter the silver silences, I hear 
The owl's clear tremolo rise over-clear — 
The mouse's blood along his veins has made 
His love-note lovelier and the night afraid 
Of beauty's dreadful secret — and I know 
Soft shapes of stealth that in the darkness go. 
Of furry lusts and gnawing hungers, small 

92 



THE DIVINE FANTASY 

Twittering things obscene, that flit or crawl 
In furtive secrecy, vague mouths and blurred 
Of the night creature or nocturnal bird — 
Amorphous moth and bat-wing — and the earth, 
With all her burrows, nooks and nests of birth 
Crowded, and wreck of many a perished might. 
By the ebbed waters of Life*s fierce delight 
Washed up on shores of silence — spoiled and spurned 
Altars where once the sacred fire burned — 
Forms flowing back into the Formlessness; 
In a supreme embrace, a long caress. 
Mixing their bodies with the mother mould — 
And all the heaven of stars around me rolled. 
Whose brooding eyes have stared so many an age 
Upon this theatre of lust and rage. 
Of death and adoration. And a breeze 
Rustles the branches of the poplar-trees. 

Dear Spark, that shinest in the solitude ! 
One Consciousness, that in the brotherhood 
Of all earth's living creatures movest on 
The shaken ramparts of Oblivion — 
Whose starry cry, across the darkness hurled. 
Makes music in the silence of the world ! 
Life, whose sole splendor in red slaughter spills 



THE DIVINE FANTASY 

The blood of its own breast; in many wills 
Wars on the one Will; and in wrath or dread 
Feeds on itself and, on itself being fed, 
Shines forth in song and color; gilds the dress 
Of the green-fly; and pours its loveHness 
In rapture on the earth; in theatres 
Of crowded congregation sits — nor stirs — 
Watching itself, itself the spectacle; 
And builds the swallow's breast, and shapes the shell 
And all these mansions of its thought that are 
Between the morning and the evening-star. 
On earth, in heaven, or in the glimmering caves 
And grottoes of the world below the waves — 
Butchers the ox, and, gladdened by his meat, 
In the young mother's downward smile is sweet; 
Or, sated on his body, walks abroad 
In symphonies, and poems, and prayers to God; 
Sins, and has conscience and, repenting, sins; 
And in the lowly patient spider spins 
Its fragile web; and in these words of mine 
Flings out its groping utterance, line by line, 
Across the intangible abyss of thought — 
With infinite passion, infinite patience wrought — 
Dread Loveliness ! Be strong in me, be strong. 
To utter forth your meaning in my song ! 

94 



THE LION-HOUSE 



ALWAYS the heavy air, 
^ The dreadful cage, the low 
Murmur of voices, where 

Some Force goes to and fro 
In an immense despair ! 

As through a haunted brain— 

With tireless footfalls 
The Obsession moves again, 

Trying the floor, the walls, 
Forever, but in vain. 

In vain, proud Force ! A might. 
Shrewder than yours, did spin 

Around your rage that bright 
Prison of steel, wherein 

You pace for my delight. 

And O, my heart, what Doom, 
What warier Will has wrought 

The cage, within whose room 
Paces your burning thought, 

For the deUght of Whom? 
97 



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